I'm sure many people here have already voiced their disappointment that Team Silent is hardly involved with the direction for this game. My question is if we should take the story of SH0rigins as canon and incorporate them into debating the Silent Hill series, or if it's better to leave it out much like most people do with other non-canon material.

Now, at first glance, the answer seems to be an easy one. However, consider that perhaps Konami or more specifically, Team Silent one day officially states that the game should be taken as canon. Afterall, most of the non-canon material makes an effort to tell us that this is happening in an "alternate universe", but SH0rigins is different for the sole reason that it is considered a prequel that connects to the canon series.

Would we actually be missing out by assuming that SH0rigins is non-canon and reject it on the sole basis that it wasn't written by Team Silent?

Depends. If the game is great, then it's a canon. If it sucks balls, then obviously I don't want it to be related to SH1-4.
But in truth, I think it should be considered a canon, because it's obviously a prequel to SH1 and Konami Japan is probably fine with it to let it out into the market.

THat is the beauty of this, you can decide for yourself! I agree: if it rocks, people will consider it canon, and if it sucks, its just a side adventure!

Quite right. Though, what I'm wondering about is if Team Silent decides to make a connection to this game in future installments of the game. Like what if, say, Silent Hill 6 or 7 has a connection to SH0rigins and it's absolutely necessary to understand the plot elements of SH0rigins to make sense of it?

At this point, we are rather assuming that the games will all have separate stories not necessarily connecting to one another. Yet history does tells us that Team Silent likes to use stuff from previous installments as a nod to former fans (or if you prefer, ran out of ideas). If they, one day, decide to follow up on the story SH0rigins, then we'll have no choice but to accept it as canon.

Whether one accepts the game as canon or not can lead up to uninteresting theoretical debates. Generally, when we discuss a theory, we are all on the same basis in that we agree on which games are canon. But if someone proposes a theory that uses plot elements from SH0rigins, would it be in the best interest for another person to simply dismiss it because he or she doesn't consider it canon?

Since this game is very much Konami approved, I am sure they consider it 'Canon.'

Something tells me if there are ever references in later games, they may just 'inside nods.' Remember, this takes place before Silent Hill......the current storyline has gone many many years past that, what with part 3 and all....this game represents Silent Hill's 'ancient history'

_________________"I dreamt last night I saw youA single spark explosion negotiating with the deadBy the bright lights in some ICU on my chest you put your headand said "There you are.There you are.There's my heart..."

I know people will disagree with me, but I don't think it's cannon. It wasn't written by Team Silent [if I'm correct] and it wasn't made by Team Silent. They even say if it does well they can hopefully make a sequel. If you ask me, it's nothing more than a spin-off game [series perhaps] and it shouldn't be taken as cannon unless it's stated by Team Silent.

One could also argue that unless it's written by the same individual who wrote Silent Hill 1 that it's not canon, disqualifying Silent Hill 2, 3, and The Room.

Team Silent is a game development team, not luminaries of fiction. Is it not within the realm of possibility that a different development team can have an understanding of the series and write a good story about it?

Series evolve and change. Resident Evil's writers have changed consistently over the course of the series, and Tomb Raider: Legend was made by a completely different company, and both these examples are doing just fine.

Shouldn't we save the fanboy outcry until, well, the game actually exists?

_________________"I dreamt last night I saw youA single spark explosion negotiating with the deadBy the bright lights in some ICU on my chest you put your headand said "There you are.There you are.There's my heart..."